Back in November last year, NVIDIA released the first of the GeForce 8800 cards into the market, the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB and the GeForce 8800 GTX. These took the market by storm, as NVIDIA has successfully took back the performance crown from ATI, being the first graphics manufacturers to introduce DirectX 10 solutions into the market, with ATI only responding 6 months later with a feeble attempt with the Radeon HD 2900 XT in May. In Febuary this year, we also see NVIDIA releasing a 320MB version of the GeForce 8800 GTS with the exact same specifications with its 640MB brother, which successfully help NVIDIA grab hold of another market price point. - VR-Zone

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Video Board Review

Today, we will see the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB cards, otherwise known as the G92 flood the market at a fantastic street price of $249, successfully replacing the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB which falls into the same price point, and at the same time, outperforms the GeForce 8800 GTS in most games. We will also see NVIDIA employing a single slot cooling solution instead of the familiar beefy two slot cooling that G80 sport. This is largely due to the reduction in die size, many thanks to the reduced die fabrication process to 65nm, down from the 80nm process used in the G80's.

We've seen the charts, it's evident that the consumer should ditch all thoughts of getting any current GeForce 8800 GTS, with a new refresh of the GeForce 8800 GTS looming in the horizon that is touted to be superior in performance even when compared to it's bigger G80 brothers. With a die shrink using a more refined fabrication process, we can see that NVIDIA did make some architectural enhancements to the G92, especially in terms of shader and vertex processing. The question now is, why should anyone pay more for a GeForce 8800 GTX or Ultra especially when the performance gap is narrowed down till such a stage?

Priced at $249, it's ridiculous for anyone to spend a good $300 more just for a marginal performance difference at maximum resolutions! Not many of us actually play games on a 30incher and switches on anti-aliasing and anysotropic filtering at the same time. With the current trend on the rise in larger monitors and gaming resolutions, the GeForce 8800 GT arrives just in the nick of time to rescue avid gamers and enthusiasts alike from the incoming hail of DirectX 10 capable games that are going to flood the market this holiday season through till next year. All the DirectX 10 power, at an affordable price point.

That, we believe is the main purpose of the GeForce 8800 GT. It's ability to hold up in DirectX 10 games against much tougher and more expensive competitors like the GeForce 8800 GTX will be much appreciated amongst the gaming hungry but budget conscious majority of hardware enthusiasts out there. We can safely say for its price point, such an ability is unparalleled at the moment. Alas, the G92's aint flawless. We've tried to run the GeForce 8800 GT in SLI mode with a nForce 680i mainboard, but was only greeted with a single card in Vista's device manager despite our various attempts to rectify this problem.

All users who wishes to buy a couple of GeForce 8800 GT cards should take note, the G92 in SLI doesn't seem to be quite working with Vista just yet. Nevertheless, we reckon this isn't a major problem and NVIDIA should be fixing this in due time, as we've seen SLI benchmarks of the G92's on nForce 780i floating around the web in recent days. In time to come, the amount of possibilities unlocked by DirectX 10 will be impossible to gauge. NVIDIA is heading in a direction of improving their DirectX 10 support for their line-up of cards, and the GeForce 8800 GT is truly one of many more to come.